Mike Cassidy (entrepreneur)
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Mike Cassidy is an American entrepreneur, and was CEO and co-founder of five previous Internet start-ups including Stylus Innovation, Direct Hit, Xfire, Ruba.com,[1] and Apollo Fusion. In January 2012, he became director of product management and subsequently a Vice President [2] at Google and led Project Loon[3] with Google[x]. In April 2017, it was reported he was working on a clean energy startup, Apollo Fusion, using a hybrid reactor technology based on fusion power.[4]
Education[edit]
Cassidy was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS '85, MS '86 in Aerospace Engineering), Harvard Business School (1991), and studied jazz piano at the Berklee College of Music.[5]
Career[edit]
His first success, Stylus Innovation, was started with $500 each from Cassidy and his two co-founders, Krisztina Holly and John Barrus, and subsequently won the MIT 10K (now called the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition).[6] The company was later sold to Artisoft for $13 million in 1996.[7] His second effort was early Internet search engine Direct Hit, sold to Ask Jeeves for $532.5 million in January 2000 only 500 days after launch. Cassidy's next effort was Xfire, a freeware instant messaging service aimed at gamers. Xfire was sold to Viacom on April 25, 2006 for $110 million.
After a stint as an EIR at Benchmark Capital,[8] Mike founded Ruba with Arnaud Weber,[9] who was previously a technical lead for the Chrome browser project at Google. Ruba was acquired by Google in May, 2010. [10]
Most recently, Cassidy co-founded and served as CEO of Apollo Fusion, an electric in-space satellite propulsion company. The company was acquired by Astra (NASDAQ:ASTR) on June 7, 2021 for $145 million.[11]
Cassidy is perhaps best known for promoting "speed as the primary business strategy." He has given numerous talks on the subject, and his Slideshare presentation has received over 75,900 views.[12]
Awards[edit]
Mike is also the recipient of the DEMO Lifetime Achievement award.[13]
References[edit]
- ^ [1],'Start-up King' Mike Cassidy
- ^ “Mike Cassidy”, MITCNC
- ^ "Mike Cassidy", Project loon: Meet the team
- ^ Bloomberg Technology, Former Google Vice President Starts a Company Promising Clean and Safe Nuclear Energy
- ^ Notable Biographies, Mike Cassidy.
- ^ VentureBeat, How many times can you bet on this guy?
- ^ VentureHacks, Cassidy and speed.
- ^ GameDaily Interview, Mike Cassidy on Leaving Xfire, Joining Benchmark Capital.
- ^ Ruba- Discover your next perfect trip
- ^ [2] Google Hires Team Behind Online Travel Guide Ruba
- ^ Apollo acquired by Astra, Astra to acquire spacecraft propulsion company Apollo Fusion.
- ^ DEMO, Lifetime Achievement Awards Fall 2009.